Chromaticity
by Lirazel
Summary: “Everyone is a color, you know, every single person. It’s a scientific fact.” Character sketch collection featuring just about everyone.
1. Prologue: Silver

**Chromaticity**

"Everyone is a color, you know, every single person. It's a scientific fact." Character sketch collection.

Chro-_ma-_tic-i-ty _n._

_The aspect of color that includes consideration of its dominant wavelength and purity._

I don't know where this came from, but here it is. It's been sitting on my harddrive for a while, so I thought I'd go ahead and share.It's a collection of character sketches of various lengths, some much longer than others, some merely drabbles.

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Prologue: _Silver_

He thinks it's strange that he should worry about her thinking him silly. Nothing, it seems, is too fantastic for her. It isn't that she's credulous, gullible: she just believes _so much_, has so much faith for just one person. And they make fun of her, laughing behind her back, jeering and rolling eyes and calling names and ignoring how cruel their words are. Though she never seems to mind, not the way he would—did—does.

But nonetheless, he _does_ worry about it, putting it off, feeling heat rise to his cheeks every time he thinks about it. Finally he musters up a thimbleful of the courage he should, as a Gryffindor, have in abundance and approaches her.

She's sitting outside, _underneath_ a bench instead of on top of it. He is not surprised.

"What is it today?" he asks, sitting down clumsily beside her.

"Floxinveets," she says solemnly. He's never heard of them, but doesn't immediately write them off as myths like he used to. He also doesn't ask. Instead, he nods, and waits.

The thing he likes about her is that she can just be _quiet_ for long stretches of time, not chattering on until his head spins like most girls do, and that she's alright with _his_ silence, never, subtly, pressuring him to fill the silence, forcing out words that are as awkward as he feels. Instead, she reaches through the silence, approves of it, blesses it, and he is content with his thoughts, which are not awkward at all.

But words, of course, are necessary sometimes, and now is one of those times. So he gropes for them.

She blinks at him, owlishly, behind white-blonde hair, between door-knocker earrings, above seashell necklace. The words stumble out like he stumbles up and down stairs and out of bed and over benches and into desks.

He's sure she thinks he's silly, but he thinks she should know, he doesn't know why except that it seems so important, even though it doesn't have anything to do with anything and is jut a result of his boredom, but does she know that when he thinks about her—not that he does that often—though she's worth thinking about, he means…he means…she just reminds him of silver. Silver like moonlight, like her wing—but she doesn't have wing, though she could—should…he means, silver like her laughter, silver like her hair—when the moon is out, not during the day, of course—and he knows her eyes are blue but they seem silver and maybe it just has to do with her name—since it means moon and the moon is silver—well, most of the time, though sometimes it's gold or white and he saw a red moon once, scarlet, like blood, and it scared him, but anyways, _silver_….

The words peter out, down to a trickle, till there is nothing left but the sound of the wind in the trees and the students laughing down by the lake.

She blinks again, then takes his hand. She does not smile, but she doesn't need to, for her steady gaze is better than any smile, and says, "Of course you're not silly. I _am_ silver. Everyone is a color, you know, every single person. It's a scientific fact. Didn't you know that?"

But of course, you see, he _did_.

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Up next: Blue


	2. Blue

Chromaticity

"Everyone is a color, you know, every single person. It's a scientific fact." Character sketch collection.

_Disclaimer: JKR owns it all. Except Ron. He's mine._

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_Blue_

Blue is a very normal color, everyday, overused. Primary. It's everywhere. When you get those little boxes with crayons, there's a yellow, a red, a green—and a blue. A lot of people paint bedrooms and nurseries and hospital rooms blue because it's supposed to be _calming_. And most people, when asked, will say that it's their favorite color so that they don't have to think about it—the apathetic ones, at least, because the passionate people, the people who take the time to think about it choose _red_ and _green_ and _purple_ and colors like that.

Blue is kind of boring. Lots of people wear it, and a lot of people have blue eyes, and nobody really notices it.

His mother pokes him in the back—it hurts—tells him to stand up straight, and says that blue is the color of the sky, and the ocean, and the jeans he loves so much, and forget-me-nots. She says all these things are dependable and sturdy; they're always _there _when you need them. Blue's loyal, you see.

True blue, she says. True blue.

He thinks words like dependable and sturdy and even loyal are boring. Surely blue must get tired of being described that way, must long to be called exciting and adventurous and heroic….

But of course colors can't be that way, he reminds himself.

His oldest brother reminds him that blue may not be very exciting on its own, but when you mix it with other colors, it creates new, brighter colors: vibrant greens and deep purples.

He thinks that perhaps blue must get tired of only having meaning when combined with other colors; it must want to stand on its own two feet and name sometimes and be worth something because of what it _is_….

But he shakes himself out of this flight of fancy and tries to forget about colors and blue and combinations.

But there are storms, turning sky and sea grey and then black, and blood cakes and covers jeans, crusting them brown, and forget-me-nots cannot grow for all the ash of death, and he sort of misses blue. He misses all colors, actually, all variety in this colorless world the Darkness is trying to suck of all life, but he sort of really misses blue.

And in the depth of colorless night, he sort of forgets what it looks like.

But every storm ends and he lies on his back on a sea of green grass, gazing up at a sky so blue that it hurts. And he realizes that the green is important and without the blue, there would _be_ no green. And the sky is so big and deep and _there_ just exactly when he needs it to be, and maybe loyalty isn't so bad after all, because what if the sky changed colors every day and you never knew what color it would be tomorrow and wouldn't it be scary _wondering_.

Maybe blue isn't so bad after all.

-------

Oh, I just love Ron.

Reviews, pretty please!

Next up: Brown


	3. Brown

Chromaticity

"Everyone is a color, you know, every single person. It's a scientific fact." Character sketch collection.

_Disclaimer: JKR owns it all. Except Ron. He's mine._

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Brown

She's neutrals, he supposes, and that's what he likes about her. A lot of people find her browns and ambers and off-whites boring, stuffy, dry even. She feels that way, he knows in his gut, though he can't verbalize it or explain why. She thinks her colors dull and lifeless and not worth pursuing.

She's wrong, of course, and so are they. Her browns are some of the things he likes most about her.

Her hair is brown and probably a little too big, if he's honest, which he used to be and not in a kind way. But sometimes when the sunlight hits it just right, it comes _alive_ and is a thousand colors that have no names because only he can see them and he's never been too good with words (that's her job). And brown is a great color, the color of earth. Dirt, she'd say. Mud, their enemies would jeer. But they forget what he cannot help but remember. Earth is _life_ and given sunshine and water (water's blue), _anything_ can grow out of it. Anything at all.

She'd say her eyes are brown, too, and most people would agree. But they're wrong. Her eyes are amber. The word hits him like a bludger one day when he's thinking about something else, for once _not_ pondering her eyes, which is ironic, but he recognizes it as perfect at once and is very pleased. And he remembers things about amber. It's found deep within the ground (you have to search for it) and it can be used to make jewelry and protective amulets and sometimes, when it's being formed, insects and leaves or something will get stuck in it and be trapped—_preserved_—for millennia. And that insect is perfect, complete, total, whole, and forever, and all you have to do is look for it. He's not exactly sure what the correlation is, though he knows there is one, and that it doesn't matter anyways because amber is _perfect_.

Her hands, under their ink stains, are off-white. They are not porcelain and perfect or deep, golden tanned, though he knows she bemoans this, wishing they were one or the other, and not this dreadful in between. She would never admit this, would, in fact deny it, but he _knows_ her and knows that it is true. But her skin sort of reminds him of the pages of books, and she should like that. He knows that it is strange for him to even _think_ about books, but after all, they are so much a part of her. Sometimes she—her skin—seems an extension of the books and off-white is the correct and perfect color for book pages. If they were pristine white, the glare of the sun would strain reading eyes, and the pages would show too much dirt and fingerprint smudges. If they were a deeper tan, no one would be able to read the words.

So she should see that all of her colors: brown, amber, off-white: her boring neutrals are perfect. That _she_ is perfect.

But how can she know unless he tells her?

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Next...Light, I think.


	4. Light

Chromaticity

"Everyone is a color, you know, every single person. It's a scientific fact." Character sketch collection.

_Disclaimer: JKR owns it all. Except Ron. He's mine._

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_Light_

He doesn't remember much from the Muggle school from Before His Life Began, but he remembers one science lesson. The teacher gave them a triangle piece of glass and showed them that light—white light, true light—was made up of all the other different colors, that without every single other color of the spectrum, there is no light. And without light, there is no life.

He thinks about this, because now they are calling him the Light. A new title, one added to his collection, which was already extensive. But though they're all heavy, this one seems so much bigger, so much _more_ somehow. Because, in a way, they're calling him life.

That's a big burden, and he's only one person, after all. He gets tired of it sometimes—many times—until he remembers his science lesson and the truth.

Because just like light is nothing without all the colors, he is nothing without everyone who loves him.

Perhaps he _is_ the light, but that doesn't say very much about _him_. It means so very, very much about the people in his life. The people who fight for him and support him and stand by him and laugh with him and tease him and cry with him and help him up and keep him humble and dream with him and _love _him.

He knows this: love is his strength, shield, weapon, gift, burden, _life_, and has been from that moment in Godric's Hollow. It is what makes him _him_ and not the Enemy. But he is just one person and one person is not enough to stand up to, much less defeat, the greatest darkness in the world. But somehow he _is_ enough and not because of himself. Because of all those people—his friends—his _family_—pouring their love into him like a never-ending stream, filling him to the brim so that he overflows, and it is not really his battle, but theirs, and he is merely the channel, the conduit of so much love, so very, very much, so much love, so much life, so much light.

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Short, I know, but next one should be quite a bit longer.

Next up: Yellow


	5. Yellow

Chromaticity

"Everyone is a color, you know, every single person. It's a scientific fact." Character sketch collection.

_Disclaimer: JKR owns it all. Except Ron. He's mine._

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_Yellow_

He thinks she is sunlight, warmth, brightness, fire. She is red and orange and yellow and gold. Copper hair, summer-bronzed skin, orange freckles, red lips. When he thinks of her, he thinks of the first days of autumn, when the air is still warm and the sun still shines like summer, though the wind has an edge of a chill to it, and the leaves are just barely beginning to turn. He thinks of the scarlet and gold Gryffindor banners above their table in the Great Hall and the tapestries in the Common Room. He thinks of the first fires in the fireplace when the nights begin to turn cool and of apples eaten outside under the giant oak. And because all of theses things mean Hogwarts, he thinks of home.

He thinks of bronze strands of hair whipping past flushed cheeks as she soars past him on her broom, eyes lit with the laughter and afternoon sunshine of a Quidditch practice. He thinks of the few day he's spent at the Burrow during the summers, when too much sun turns her skin red and peeling, how her frustrations made him laugh, but how he could feel her pain. He thinks of firelight burnishing her skin on those late nights during those beautiful weeks that would always be her gift to him. He thinks of that first, perfect, sunlit afternoon, when everything was so new and exciting, and he could finally run his fingers through her fiery hair and trail his fingers across her freckled cheeks, and kiss her, warmth bubbling up, and laugh with her, golden and flowing, and sit in silence with her, sunlight filling the space between them.

He thinks of bright intelligence and shining loyalty and sparkling humor and silently-burning love. He thinks of how willing she was to share all of that with him, for so many years when he was too blind to see her right there in front of him. He thinks of how little he deserved her, how completely unworthy he was—is—of her fire and light.

Because he knows it is still his. She looked him straight in the eye as he said the words that must be said, unwavering, though her face was white, and she understood. She didn't have to say that it hurt her—he knew, because it hurt him more—any more than she had to tell him that she understood—of _course _she did; she was Ginny.

His life had been cold and lonely and empty with only staccato-brief moments of reprise—Sirius, whom he could never quite believe was real and there for him and suddenly he _wasn't_, just as he'd somehow known it would happen; Dumbledore, sure and whimsical and powerful and always _there_, hovering in the background, until he wasn't either. Of course, there's Ron and Hermione, but they don't really count, being less friends and more extensions of himself. No one who loves him, crossing that line and pouring themselves into the void, be it ever so briefly, ever _stays_; sooner or later, they are all taken away.

So he knew, from the very beginning, that the light that was Ginny couldn't last, not for him. But the knowledge that it was there—_she_ was there—for that one brief, shining moment—is his torch, his candle, that he carries aloft before him, a fire, brilliant sunlight to light he darkness of the path he is destined to follow.

And in the cold midnight eternity that is now his life, he can close his eyes and think of her and she is there, and everything that goes along with her: autumn leaves and Gryffindor scarves and sunlight, yellow and honey, almost liquid enough to drink.

The path doesn't seem so dark.

------

Next up: White, probably.


	6. White

Chromaticity

"Everyone is a color, you know, every single person. It's a scientific fact." Character sketch collection.

_Disclaimer: JKR owns it all. Except Ron. He's mine._

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_White_

His beard was white, of course, tumbling down over his chest, and his robes sometimes were. The flash of his teeth when he grinned suddenly and unexpectedly and always bewilderingly was white, too. When the light hit the panes of his half-moon glasses just right, they were white, and sometimes so were the lights twinkling deep in his eyes.

He reminded Harry a little bit of Father Christmas, except that he was not fat. But he was jolly, in a slightly more subdued way, and very magical, always popping up unexpectedly and yet always to be counted on to be there when the occasion called for him, and he always seemed ready to give. Father Christmas made him think of snow, which made him think of winter mornings drinking hot chocolate in the Great Hall at breakfast, with Dumbledore beaming down on them all benevolently.

White is the absence of any other color, just as he was the absence of anything foul or dirty or low or unworthy. White is the opposite of black, the opposite of night and of darkness. And he was all of those opposites.

White is pure, pristine, untouchable, even, and so he always seemed to Harry. Dumbledore stood apart and above and was wholly himself in ways that Harry can only begin to imagine but longs to attain.

Now, though, when he thinks of white, he thinks of arms and robes splayed out on the night grounds of Hogwarts. He thinks of marble, carefully carved, and shining in the sun of a day that did not seem to acknowledge its own darkness.

He thinks of the blank pages that are the book of the days ahead of him, where there is no certainty that there will always be someone who can step in at the last minute and set things to right, or at least reassure him that there is still something worth fighting for and that good will triumph.

Now, when he thinks of white, he thinks of cold.

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_Terribly short, but it's all I got._

_Sorry that this one took so long, y'all; I've been working on another piece that I'm really excited about, and I'm afraid that this one fell by the wayside. But it shouldn't be quiet so long before the next installment which should be green._


	7. Green

Chromaticity

"Everyone is a color, you know, every single person. It's a scientific fact." Character sketch collection.

_Disclaimer: JKR owns it all. Except Ron. He's mine._

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_Green_

His first Dark Mark flares up high in the night sky, like a new star that has been shining for a thousand years and whose light has only now reached Earth's sights. With the sight comes a grim satisfaction, a sickly green that is very much the same as the Mark.

The Slytherin colors are green and silver, and his bedroom at home, as well as the one at school, was decorated in these hues. As soon as his parents found out that they were expecting a child, they decorated the nursery in green, with more care than they treated any other room of the house. No other color would do for a Malfoy; green was the first color he knew.

Not a rich emerald green or a deep forest or a soothing jade. This green is the green of the pallor of his skin under certain lights, when the glamour charms wore off and his sickness seeps in. It is the color of snakes, slithering through tall grass, and of the sky before a destructive storm.

Green is the color of spring, but also of jealousy. Green is the color of money, of ambition.

Green is the color of Draco Malfoy.

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_Sorry this one took so long; I haven't been able to upload documents for the past couple of days. This one was a bit cliched, I think, but next up is Red, and I really like it._


	8. Red

Chromaticity

"Everyone is a color, you know, every single person. It's a scientific fact." Character sketch collection.

_Disclaimer: JKR owns it all. Except Ron. He's mine._

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_Red_

The first color he wears as soon as he runs away is red. Sick and tired of the subdued navies and solemn maroons and haunting blacks, he goes out and buys a bright red Muggle t-shirt, a red so red that it is almost scarlet. He wears it proudly for three days, his own small rebellion. Mum would crow.

Red looks dramatic with his hair and his skin and his eyes, and he likes it. It's the color of blood, of course, but that reminds him of something: no matter what his wretched relatives say, everyone's blood is the same color. Everyone's. No one bleeds green or yellow or purple or black or even brown. Blood is the great equalizer.

Scarlet is a Gryffindor color. He remembers the wonder he felt at first wearing his scarlet and gold scarf that first year, colors he never had considered before in a world of black and green and silver. He remembers his fury at finding his school tie submerged in a bucket of green dye, remembers the triumph in Bella's eyes later that afternoon. He remembers charming his entire body scarlet for James' last Quidditch match Seventh Year—the match that won Gryffindor the Cup—and remembers how many detentions he had to serve for McGonagall because of it and remembers how much it was worth it.

He remembers the beads of red that rose to the surface of his skin, and James', and Peter's, and especially Remus' after a transformation, after the long night of running.

Red, pure, undiluted red, was the color that he saw as fury, the most powerful emotion he has ever known, exploded through him that night that he realized all he had lost and at whose hands.

Scarlet is the color he wants to see spilling from Peter's veins onto the ground, pooling in puddles and taking the rat's lifeblood with it. Red is the color of revenge.

Red is the color of the veil that separates him from everything he has ever known.

He knows that, to him, at least, red has always represented courage; the courage of a Gryffindor; the courage he needed to betray his family and his "blood" and leave that life behind him forever.

He is a Gryffindor, and scarlet is his color.

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_Since I'll be gone for a week or so, I thought I'd go ahead and post once more before I go. Hope you enjoyed this, and Pink is next._


	9. Pink

Chromaticity

"Everyone is a color, you know, every single person. It's a scientific fact." Character sketch collection.

_Disclaimer: JKR owns it all. Except Ron. He's mine._

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_Pink_

She loves pink.

Pink is the color of that great Muggle bubblegum her Dad used to buy her when she went to visit her Muggle grandparents. It's the color of Kirley McCormack Duke of the Weird Sisters' guitar. It's the color of her pet pygmy puff, Herbert, the only pet she's ever had, because her parents never trusted her with one when she was small. It's the color of the Holyhead Harpies, her favorite Quidditch team, and hence the color she often paints her face for matches.

It's the color of her hair, most of the time, and of a large number of t-shirts in her collection. It's the color of those wicked dragonhide boots Bill sent her from Egypt. It's the color Dad and Mum painted her room when she was small and begged for it, and she remembers paint streaking through Mum's hair and flecking Dad's face because they decided to do it the Muggle way. It's the color of her toenails, which she charms in a bubblegum hue. It's the color of sunsets and Floxinveets and even roses sometimes.

Pink is her color.

No raven locks cascading over _her _shoulders. No solemn, ornate, classical robes for _her_. No shiny buckled shoes made for dancing at huge balls attended by only the finest families. Nothing to remind her at all.

Pink is such a bright color, loud and vibrant, never content to take back seat. It can be a little clumsy, but is always cheerful, and decidedly girlish, despite everything.

No ladylike, haughty sophistication. No snobbery and wealth. No learned grace and aristocracy.

She hates black, hates it with every bone in her body, and pink is as far from black as you can get.

Pink is the color of denial.

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_I kinda like that one. Anyways, next up will probably be Grey, but I'm not certain yet._


	10. Grey

Chromaticity

"Everyone is a color, you know, every single person. It's a scientific fact." Character sketch collection.

_Disclaimer: JKR owns it all. Except Ron. He's mine._

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_Grey_

Dora was running her fingers through his hair this morning, laughing quietly, when she announced that there was definitely more grey there now. It doesn't bother him, he tells himself, except that it makes him feel so old.

He found the first grey hair at twenty-one. It was three days after he heard the news about James and Lily and that Sirius had been arrested and that Peter was dead and that his life was over. That was the day that he first felt old.

After that, with each transformation, he retained more grey as he regained his true form, for the conversion grew more and more violent after that October night. And there was no one left to live for after that night, so he slid into shadows. Not the shadows of evil, as he later found out that Peter had, but the shadows of forgotten lives and haunting memories, for there was a cruel sort of comfort there. His whole world was grey—beat-up grey house that could never be a home, slowly greying rags of robes, and the grey of mist and pale moonlight on the nights that he ran. And the grey in his hair spread with the wrinkles and despair.

His world is vivid now. She invaded it, quite without invitation, and infused it with colors he had forgotten existed. But no matter how bright she is, or what hues she beckons into his life, he is still greying around the edges. And the grey seems even greyer and more depressing when compared to her radiance, and it reminds him every day of how young she is and how old he is, in years and memories, and he wonders whether this is fair to her, though it is the only thing that he has found that is worth living for, and he knows that he cannot live without her.

For the first time, he resents the grey.

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_Word absolutely hates that I like to spell grey in the British way. Anyways, sorry this one took so long. Next will be Gold, I believe, but that is subject to change_.


	11. Gold

Chromaticity

"Everyone is a color, you know, every single person. It's a scientific fact." Character sketch collection.

_Disclaimer: JKR owns it all. Except Ron. He's mine._

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_Gold_

It's hard to be the golden child.

Growing up, her world was a constant stream of parties and silks and heavy perfumes and gold-plated brushes. Her mother and grandmother moved through it all, the dainties' source, like the eye of a storm. They enchanted even her, with a swish of golden hair, the lift of a gracious hand, the rustle of a gown. They groomed her to make the most of her charms, as they did, and both of them took great pleasure in combing her hair.

School was almost as bad. Madam Maxime latched onto her as soon as she arrived, taking her into her overwrought office—as gaudy, in a darker way, as Maman and Grand-mère's rooms—and giving her tests. When the giant woman discovered that the new little gold-haired pupil was talented and clever, she set about training her to be the greatest witch that Beauxbatons had ever produced. After all, with her intelligence paired with her beauty, no one would be able to stand in her way.

Life was cold.

The Cup was golden, glowing with an inner fire, but she did not want it. She looked at it and felt no desire to own it, or even to deserve it. But everyone else ooed and ahed and so she realized that she _should_ want it, or at least behave as though she did. When she was honest, she thought that that would be much too much gold for one person. She had more than enough already.

If there had been any room after the tragedy, she would have been grateful that she did not win. Besides, there was Gringott's, which was more gold—gold and gold and gold. Maman and Grand-mère approved of her working there (all that gold), mostly because she did not tell them that she was just grasping at her first chance to escape France and _their_ grasps.

And then there was him.

He was not gold or silver or any other dazzling, perfect color. He was more a tarnished copper, a little beat up, but in the best way, and strong when you came right down to it. She loved that she could not see her own reflection when she looked at him. All she saw was him.

Then there was a lot of blood, and now darkness, and finally, finally, she is a little bit glad of the gold. After all, it will reflect whatever light there is, and all she wants now is to give him light.

Perhaps the gold is not so bad, after all.

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_I've actually grown quite fond of Fleur since I wrote "The Taste of Magic," so I thought I'd give her a try here. I know she's not all that popular and that this chapter is quite different than most of the others, but I hope you still enjoyed this installment._

_I'm not sure what the next color will be, but it might just be Silver._


	12. Interlude: Silver

Chromaticity

"Everyone is a color, you know, every single person. It's a scientific fact." Character sketch collection.

_Disclaimer: JKR owns it all. Except Ron. He's mine._

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_Interlude --Silver_

_Ridiculous person that I am, I forgot that the very first installment was silver, and went and wrote this. Then, when I figured out how silly I am, I still really liked this one and thought that you might want to read it.. So, even though I didn't want to repeat a color, I decided to post this anyways. I'm considering closing with an "Epilogue -- Silver," perhaps showing three different aspects of the same color: Luna, Narcissa, and perhaps someone else (I'm open to suggestions). Just to make it all balance out._

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_Silver_

She fell in love with the house when she was ten years old and was brought along for her first ball. Marble and velvet in shades of green, shot through with silver, and silver filigree on the crown molding and silver fixtures everywhere—it all tantalized her, so different from the dark-wood grandeur of her own home.

The silver had fascinated her; she had slipped away from the music and the sharp edge that had recently entered the conversation and had traced the veins that darted through the green marble of the staircase, then followed a shining silver thread that wove its way through a tapestry.

That was the night that she met Lucius Malfoy. He had been older so that she thought that he would never notice her, but, returning to the ballroom from somewhere else in the house, he had found her there on a marble step, dressed in a white dress with a silver sash and told her that she very much looked as though she belonged there: the perfect ornament for such a house. He sat beside her on the stair, telling her the story of how the house came to be built and some of his own adventures in it. Then he went back to the dancing and the talking (ferociously whispered arguments, really), but the damage was done.

Narcissa Black had fallen in love, with Lucius and with the house, and, true Slytherin that she was, she vowed that both would be hers one day.

Now, twenty-five years later, she sits alone in the splendid house, and she hates it. Her husband stolen away from her, her family splintered, and a mark that sometimes glows silver on her son's arm. With indifferent eyes, she surveys the house and its splendor, all the things she has secured through her ambition, and finds that she no longer cares.

Silver is cold, and no comfort now.

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_I have, I believe, four colors left: Black, Purple, Orange, and Darkness. I've written Black already (though I still have to edit), and obviously, I've "cast" the last one, but I'm very much open to suggestions for the other two and also to any thoughts for who might be an appropriate character for my Silver epilogue. I'd love to do Purple next, and I have a few ideas, but none of them really fit. I really don't want to take a major character and apply a color to him or her that doesn't really fit, just for the sake of using that person. So, I'm completely open to ideas, as I said, no matter how minor the character, and I'll go ahead and say thank you in advance. Y'all are the best reviewers ever, and I can't wait to hear your suggestions._


	13. Black

Chromaticity

"Everyone is a color, you know, every single person. It's a scientific fact." Character sketch collection.

_Disclaimer: JKR owns it all. Except Ron. He's mine._

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_Black_

Even when he was a child, his mother dressed him black. She was an old-fashioned, conservative woman, made more so by her one defiant act--marrying aMuggle--and bythe death of her husband at such a young age, and she believed both that black and white were the only colors for children, and in proper mourning.

Proper mourning, in the traditional wizarding world, lasted a long time.

School robes were black, too. The little flash of green and silver on tie and badge are the only other colors he has ever worn. They did little to break the oppressiveness of the black. At school, for the first time in his life, he realized how sallow and sickly all that black paired with his pale skin and dark hair made him look. But he had no choice in the matter.

When the choice finally came, he made the wrong one. Black and black and more black, from head to toe, with only a tiny tattoo that stood out all the more because of the darkness.

And even when the real black was—so everyone supposed—slain, the most powerful wizard of the age did not believe it, and so he asked that he continue to wear the black.

He has, for sixteen more years. There is nothing else in his wardrobe, no other options. And he is achingly aware of the knowledge that black is not a color, that is absorbs all light and reflects none of it.

He wonders, not for the first time, what color is like.

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_Orange next, I believe._


	14. Purple

Chromaticity

"Everyone is a color, you know, every single person. It's a scientific fact." Character sketch collection.

_Disclaimer: JKR owns it all. Except Ron. He's mine._

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_Purple_

Once upon a time, the world was pastel and spring. There were rainy days, to be sure, inconveniences and little jealousies, the frustrations of a difficult class or an unrequited crush. They were like clouds when she wanted to go on a picnic or the arrival of an uninvited and easily offended relative when she wanted to go out on the town.

But the clouds were merely the light grey of a spring rain shower, and the guests never stayed too long. It was the perfect world for a girl with a pastelspringfragrant name.

Now there are thunderheads and ghosts that never leave. The whole world is divided into two camps: a camp of midnight darkness and another whose inhabitants glow with rich, deep emeralds and crimsons of loyalty and courage.

She feels small and flighty with her pastels and realizes that she does not fit into either one. She knows that she could never, in any world, be black and night. But shealso sticks out in this dark tapestry world, clashing violently with the jewel tones. She feels as though her paleness has nothing to offer, insubstantial as a flower in a rainstorm. She wishes that she were a deep, constant purple, as dedicated and brave as others, but she has forgotten how to be.

Perhaps blood will stain her darker, make her fit to live in this world. She wonders whether, if her color changes, she will still be Lavender.

Once upon a time, she was purple, and thought that the world wanted violet, and so she became violet. Now she wishes she could go back. But she has forgotten the way.

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_My profuse apologies for this taking so long. I've been very uninspired lately. I was less than thrilled when I decided who to write for purple, but I think it turned out rather well. Next will be Orange. _


	15. Orange

Chromaticity

"Everyone is a color, you know, every single person. It's a scientific fact." Character sketch collection.

_Disclaimer: JKR owns it all. Except Ron. He's mine._

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_Orange_

When she was sixteen years old, she finally made friends with Arthur, the shy young man on the other side of the Common Room. More than once, she'd seen him stand up for a Muggle-born or halfblood in the hallways to an older Slytherin, and that, to her, was the epitome of what it was to be a Gryffindor. She'd always liked his looks, the quiet but sure way that he carried himself, and that he seemed completely uncaring of the way the other students mocked his eccentricies—after all, how many teenaged wizards were completely obsessed with Muggles?

She envied him that. Despite her seeming self-confidence and competence (the same traits that later made her a marvelous mother also made her a wonderful prefect), she had never been entirely comfortable with her appearance. She was curvy, of course, and she knew that boys liked that, but then there was all of that hair: waves of ginger exploding from her head. The freckles didn't help anything, either, only accenting her features, which were more pleasant than pretty. Ever since she was a child, she had despaired of ever being beautiful or not standing out in the crowd.

Arthur didn't seem to care, though, and when she looked at him, she saw that orange could be quite nice, even if not on her.

But one night, in the Great Hall, a Slytherin gave her the one of the greatest presents she ever received; afterwards, she never questioned her appearance again. That spring Thursday night, the snobby student sauntered by and cast a haughty glance over her shoulder at where Molly sat beside Arthur.

"Oh, look," the Slytherin said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Prewett and Weasley. Isn't it sweet? All that orange hair and freckles. Won't their children be something? Honestly, Prewett, I think you were born to marry a Weasley."

She thinks that maybe she was.

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_I know that this one was completely different than all of the others, but I wanted to do something unexpected. Let me know your opinion. Next (and next to last) is Darkness._


	16. Darkness

Chromaticity

"Everyone is a color, you know, every single person. It's a scientific fact." Character sketch collection.

_Disclaimer: JKR owns it all. Except Ron. He's mine._

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_Darkness_

The colors were a paradox, right from the beginning. They were so rare, so fleeting, little moments when he stepped around a corner and saw brightly wrapped boxes of candy in a shop window or when he opened a new book—new only to the orphanage, for everything they had was second hand—and found an illustration. Suddenly, in the drab world that was the orphanage and his life, there was color.

He craved it, and yet he hated it. The color broke the monotony, and yet it seared his eyes. Between the interludes, when he retreated back into the familiar prison of his bleak life, he slowly recovered from the pain and the brilliance, tortured by the anguish of flesh healing itself, and yet, still, he craved it. The colors themselves were agony and ecstasy; the in-between only more so.

But still, he could not stop thinking about them. The variety, the intensity, the constancy…it all mocked and tantalized him. As the addiction and repulsion grew, so did his drive.

Power.

Power was the thing that he needed. To control and posses the colors, to find a way to own them and stop them from ever hurting him again. He found ways and means and bent others to his will, and he devoured the colors.

He was warned. Teachers, mentors, they all told him that the need to possess led only to bitterness and hatred and destruction; loving without controlling, that was the key to life. He thought them all fools, and grew all the more determined and powerful.

He succeeded. Now there are no more colors. He has sucked them all into the black hole of his soul, loving and hating them at the same time, enduring the pain as he possessed them. And now there is no more pain and no more euphoria, because colors cannot be possessed without ceasing to be. There are no more colors anymore, and that is safe, and he is glad.

There is no room in the world he has created for paradoxes.

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_This one was (obviously) more abstract than many of the others and involved a lot of symbolism. But I found it difficult to delve into the particulars of Lord Voldemort, and then I realized why: darkness is the enemy of color and details and variety._

_Anyways, only one more to go (the Silver Epilogue). Thanks for sticking with me._


	17. Epilogue: Silver

Chromaticity

"Everyone is a color, you know, every single person. It's a scientific fact." Character sketch collection.

_Disclaimer: JKR owns it all. Except Ron. He's mine._

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_Here it is. The very last installment. This one is inspired by a scene at the end of the film _Gattaca, _an_ _amazing movie;_ _if you haven't seen it, check it out._

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_Epilogue -- Silver_

He watches the blood dripdripdripping from his fingers to the ground and feels a twinge of guilt for the first time in years. The hand is covered in sticky warm blood, newly spilt and sickly-sweet, flowing from an innocent heart. But the hand is not his hand, not really; it is merely a replacement until he regains the original—the Dark Lord has promised it to him. The substitute used to be enough for the time being, but no longer.

The hand used to be beautiful. It was shiny and caught the light, and everyone admired it. But the last year has been a year of bloodshed, and now it is covered and caked with blood like rust, crusting around the edges till he is not sure if he could remove it again.

He used to be satisfied with silver. His whole life has been silver. Second son, half-blood. Second best in school—always tagging along, never talented like James or popular like Sirius or everyone's friend like Remus. He couldn't play Quidditch or shine academically, and he had never found it easy to talk to girls. He had always been more of Slytherin at heart than a Gryffindor—he was silver, never gold.

He wanted gold. He sold his soul in an attempt to gain it. He wanted to stand out, to gleam, to be first for once. He wanted gold. And it was worth any price.

Even now, he is still in second place. The Dark Lord keeps him close at hand—the irony is not lost on him—but he does not trust him with matters of importance as he did Lucius or still trusts Bellatrix. In the Dark Lord's service, he will never be anything but a minion.

He knows now why the Master gave him the silver hand and not the gold he asked for. Gold is too much to aspire to. Gold is for the best, for the worthy, and Peter Pettigrew will never be worthy.

Except…

One stormy night while a battle rages in a remote field, he realizes what his lust for gold has cost him and the people who trusted him.

Perhaps silver is enough.

So he turns on the towering figure with the snake eyes and the wand spouting death. It is futile, but he was a Gryffindor, and never lived up to that name. Perhaps now he can. He shouts the words of the Unforgivable Curse, his voice small and squeaky while the tumult and din of death swirls around him. Of course he is too slow, and the return curse is flying at him almost before he even completes the words; he was never very good at duels.

But as the killing light bears down on him, the sickly green is overthrown by a great gold light, a light overtaking everything: his distraction bought the right moment in time. And he imagines for a moment that the light stains his hand gold as the rising sun might. And he thinks, perhaps, that only by accepting the silver could he be worthy of the gold.

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_I'm very unsure about this one (big surprise); I really hope that the end wasn't too heavy-handed or sentimental._

_And thanks so much to each one of you for taking this journey with me. I appreciate each and every review; y'all are the best readers ever!_


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